News

Mix: Gartner, DVD Jon, T-Mobile, Schiller

By Charles Starrett ● Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Apple grabbed 13.3% of the worldwide smartphone market in the second quarter, according to the latest data released by Gartner. While overall mobile sales declined 6%, smartphone sales grew 27%, helping Apple to reach third place on the list of handset manufacturers, behind only Nokia with a 45% share of the market—down from 47.4% in the year-ago quarter—and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, which gained 1.4% year-over-year to capture 18.7% of the market. Notably, Apple accounted for only 2.8% of the market in Q2 2008 due to the timing of the iPhone 3G’s announcement and launch.

“DVD Jon” Johansen has been subpoenaed in the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Apple over the iPod and iTunes. Johansen, perhaps best known for breaking the encryption used on DVDs, has been asked to hand over all communications with Apple concerning his efforts to make the iPod compatible with media purchased from online services other than iTunes, to make iTunes Store purchases compatible with other players and devices, to license FairPlay, and Apple’s attempts to prevent him from circumventing or reverse-engineering FairPlay. The lawsuit itself dates back to early 2005, and alleges that Apple broke antitrust laws by limiting the compatibility of purchases from iTunes to the iPod, and by refusing to make the iPod compatible with DRM’d media purchased in other formats, such as WMA.

T-Mobile in the U.S. has begun shutting off data service to customers using the prepaid Sidekick plan with an unlocked iPhone. The plan allowed iPhone users to pay $1 per day for unlimited text and data. T-Mobile made an official statement on the matter via its Twitter account, but TUAW notes that users on Android-specific data plans appear to be unaffected by the change. Earlier this year, T-Mobile said it was “committed” to supporting its iPhone customers despite the fact that it doesn’t offer the device due to Apple’s exclusivity agreement with competing carrier AT&T.

Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller has again curiously responded directly to an individual blog post regarding the iPhone and the App Store. Following a lengthy post discussing his decision to boycott the iPhone “until the issues with app store policy are demonstrably improved,” Panic co-founder Steven Frank received an email from Schiller addressing some of his concerns; Frank said that he was surprised to receive the email, and is soliciting reader advice on whether to continue the boycott.

Although Frank has chosen not to publish the message verbatim, he claims that Schiller was basically saying “we’re listening to your feedback;” Schiller also denied references to the supposed App Store ban on e-books, explaining that the specific e-book app referenced had been rejected because it allowed sharing of (potentially copyrighted) books between devices.